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Josquin’s TAC 2014 - Катюша, Celts, 旅立ち | ||
Tags: Gaelic (Irish) | Hungarian | Portuguese | Korean | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 33 of 227 21 January 2014 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the link, renaissancemedi! There is a German dub of Достоевский available, so I could watch it in German first and then try to return to the Russian version. It seemed like a good series to me and I think Dostoyevsky is a very interesting person, so that could be quite fun.
I didn't know about the TV adaption of Идиот. I'm tempted to watch it, but I'd like to read the book first. I generally hate watching a film and then reading the book that it's based on. I have wanted to read Идиот for some time now, although I'm definitely not going to read it in Russian when reading it for the first time! Anyway, at the moment I'm busy with Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and a Brahms biography (both in English), so Идиот will still have to wait some time. Edited by Josquin on 23 January 2014 at 10:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 34 of 227 26 January 2014 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUNDAY, 26 JANUARY 2014
This week, I was mainly busy with Japanese, but I also did some Russian on the side. My Irish has gone dormant, because I simply don't enjoy working with Learning Irish. In a month, the new Living Language Irish course will be released, so I'll probably take a break from Irish until then. Maybe, I will create an Anki deck for the vocabulary and revise some grammar points, but that's it. Русский I have reviewed my old Anki deck and found that I had forgotten a remarkable amount of words. On the positive side, most of these words were from the history texts in Ну что, поехали? and not really useful. Most of them consisted of war terms like "occupy", "destroy", "defend", "got to war", "conquer", and so on - maybe useful if you want to read about history or politics, but not at my level of Russian. So, I'll probably clean up my deck and concentrate on more useful vocabulary. I'm still working on unit 5 in Colloquial Russian 2, but I'm not really enjoying this book. Instead of working with non-fictional texts and news articles, I'd like to read something more entertaining. I guess it's finally time to hunt for suitable native materials like easy novels, films, and TV shows. 日本語 I took a little break from Genki and concentrated on my Anki decks instead. All in all, I was rather surprised how much of the vocabulary from Colloquial I still remembered, but I also noticed that this break was necessary in order to add the vocabulary from Genki. I'm on unit 7 now, which is a good point to take a little look back and review what I have learned by now. I think I have a much better feel for the basics of Japanese grammar and vocabulary now, because I repeated everything in detail that I had learned a bit unsystematically with Colloquial before. In the next units, however, there will be new grammar points and new kanji, so the phase of "consolidating" my basic Japanese is over. After entering all the vocabulary into Anki and doing some control exercises, I will finally be able to learn sometihing new in Japanese, which I'm really looking forward to. Edited by Josquin on 26 January 2014 at 2:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 35 of 227 02 February 2014 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUNDAY, 02 FEBRUARY 2014
So, I've mainly been concentrating on Japanese during the last few days. It's my focus language for the 6WC, so this probably won't change for the next few weeks. However, I decided to try some new things for my other languages. Русский I'm fed up with the boring texts in Colloquial Russian 2, so I downloaded some Russian e-books: The Hobbit, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Gulliver's Travels. I will try to read them for some diversion in my Russian studies. Of course, it would be perfect if I could also find matching audiobooks, but I will have to do some more research for that. Other than that, now news on the Russian front. Gaeilge I don't know how often I have written in my log that I detest Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish, so I finally took a look around the Internet and researched other resources for Irish. It turns out that Buntús Cainte mainly consists of words and phrases, so it's probably not my kind of resource. However, I read some really good reviews about Gaeilge gan Stró and even had a look at some sample chapters. It seems to be a very useful resource, although its structure is very similar to Colloquial Irish. Now, I'm tempted to order it, but I'm not quite sure whether to go for the beginner's edition or the one aimed at low intermediate learners. I do have a little foundation in Irish (and, moreover, in Scottish Gaelic), so it might turn out that the beginner's edition is too easy for me. And then there is Living Language, which will be released in a few weeks. I'm hesitant to buy two courses at the same time, so I'm not quite sure what to do right now. Should I go for Gaeilge gan Stró or wait for Living Language? Damn it, all those difficult decisions... 日本語 So, yes, Japanese: I have mainly been feeding old vocabulary into Anki and repeating it with said programme. I haven't really made any progress in Genki, but I'm getting closer to the point in grammar where I quit Colloquial Japanese. More precisely, I repeated the verb stem + に + 行く construction and I fear it might cause me some headaches. First of all, it's the first time I had to use the verb stem, which is not similar to the plain form, but rather consists of the masu-form without the ending. Second of all, the structure is weird, because it's directly opposite to IE syntax (Damn you, left-branching sentence structure!). And third of all, it's really difficult to understand and process the whole thing correctly when hearing it in spoken language. So, this will probably take me some more time to master. Edited by Josquin on 02 February 2014 at 6:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5982 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 36 of 227 02 February 2014 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess now might be a good time to drop by and say keep going with Japanese. Don't let the ますstem + に行く construction get the better of you this time!
I do think it's one of those constructions that it would be safe to move on from and come back to later if it's too much of a headache. It's a little less fundamental than some of the other grammar points in Unit 7, such as the ～て form of verbs. I'm trying to think of the best way of describing the ます stem of the verb, but it's difficult. In many expressions it is used as a conjunction to connect the verb to an adjective or another verb, a bit like the ～て form but more limited to special expressions. For example, if you haven't already met ～たい (to want) it will show up later in Genki. In other cases, it behaves more like a noun, but again this tends to be limited to special expressions. In some cases, the ます stem of a verb is a noun in its own right, e.g. compare 間違え (mistake) and 間違える (to make a mistake). I think the ます stem + に行く expression is probably one of the most common examples of an expression where the ます stem behaves as a noun, even taking the particle に. Maybe in trying to parse the sentence structure it will help to think about the difference between: 映画館に ＋ 行きます to the cinema + go = I go to the cinema 映画を見に ＋ 行きます to see a movie + go = I go to see a movie Speaking of IE syntax, I guess "I go to the cinema" in German would be "Ich gehe ins Kino" (I hope I picked the right preposition). How would German handle "I go to see a movie"? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4772 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 37 of 227 02 February 2014 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 38 of 227 02 February 2014 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, g-bod!
I'm definitely not giving up on Japanese because of this construction. Maybe my log entry was a tad too negative. I just wanted to say I find this construction challenging at the moment. While I don't have a problem with recognizing and understanding it in written language, I still find it difficult to understand in spoken language -- and to use it actively. As I said, it will probably take some more time to get to the point where I have completely internalized it. Thinking of the ます stem as a verbal noun actually helps, thank you! I couldn't quite understand why the に is used, but when you interpret the verb stem as a noun, it actually makes sense! Your German sentence was correct! "I go to see a movie" would be "Ich gehe mir einen Film ansehen" in German. I think my problem is that the information what you're going to do comes before the verb in Japanese, while it comes after the verb in IE languages. That's similar to Japanese relative clauses, which come before the noun they refer to. Thinking this way is still a bit strange. Thanks for your explanations, vonPeterhof! That's very interesting! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5166 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 39 of 227 03 February 2014 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really like Living Language, but since you're not starting from scratch, you should try
to check which one of the two books will bring you further, because it will mean less time to spend on Learning Irish again later. Living Language is know for both authentic dialogues and consistent grammar explanations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4844 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 40 of 227 04 February 2014 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the recommendation, Expugnator!
It's difficult to decide which resource will be more effective, because I can't go to the bookstore and have a look at them. The Gaeilge gan Stró books have to be ordered from Ireland, and Living Language has to be ordered from the Internet as well. Well, I have decided to wait with ordering until March anyway. I have too many expenses at the moment... Edited by Josquin on 04 February 2014 at 5:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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